Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anna Turley and Lord Garnier

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley]

I am afraid that I am nearly at the end of my speech, so I will finish.

The lobbying legislation looks to many in the sector too much like another deliberate and shameless act by a Government who are too scared to debate their record or to be open to scrutiny and challenge. The health of our democracy depends on people’s right to campaign on the issues they care about. The 2014 Act was an attack on our democracy. It limits the rights of charities to fight for important causes. It has left expert organisations that have a vital contribution to make to public debate unsure whether they are allowed to speak out. We seek to protect the right of charities to have a loud and respected voice in our democracy. I commend new clause 3 to the House.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) on her first speech from the Dispatch Box in the Report stage of a Bill. She gave a thorough explanation of her case on behalf of the official Opposition, although I am not entirely sure that I agreed with all of it. No doubt she gave it a lot of thought. She certainly gave us the benefit of her views.

I will not follow the hon. Lady up and down the badger setts of England and Wales, if that is all right with her, but I will speak to amendment 1, which stands in my name. I will do so, with the greatest of respect, in a slightly less aggressive way than her, although there is nothing wrong with aggression when one has something decent to say. I must declare an interest, as is indicated on the Order Paper, because I am a patron of Unlock, the charity that seeks to help people with convictions, and a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. Both positions are unpaid.

I became interested in prison issues, the rehabilitation of offenders and so on when the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, appointed me in the middle of the last decade as shadow Minister with responsibility for prisons and probation. As a consequence of that appointment, I visited about 65 of the 140 or so prisons, young offender institutions and secure training units throughout England and Wales. It became apparent to me—it was not a new idea, in that others had discovered it previously—that one of the things that contributes to the high levels of reoffending among those people who have been sent to prison and come out again, particularly among youngsters, is that they do not have a job or somewhere settled to stay, and that they have, to put it loosely, relationship problems. If we can do something to help people to form strong, stable relationships with families, partners or others, and if we can find them somewhere stable to stay and live, and if we can help them to get training or work, the chances that they will reoffend and go back to prison are very much reduced.

As a consequence of the voyage of discovery that I went on from 2005 or so until I was appointed shadow Attorney-General in 2009, I wrote a paper called “Prisons with a Purpose”. I hope that the Secretary of State for Justice—I see his Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), sitting in his place to my left—is picking up many of the ideas that I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) pushed forward in that period of opposition.

I suppose it is not a surprise that I have become attached to the Prison Reform Trust and to Unlock, but in speaking to my amendment 1, which is long—it is set out on page 5 of the amendment paper—I invite the Government to have a little think about the disqualification or waiver procedure that applies to people with criminal records, either in so far as they may be trustees of charities that have an interest in looking after ex-offenders, or in so far as they may be employees of those charities.

I hope that the framework of the amendment is clear in itself but, if I may—I will be as quick as I can because I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and other right hon. and hon. Members wish to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker—I hope he and the House will forgive me if I take a little time in setting out what I intend to do. I should confess at the outset that I am very grateful to the Prison Reform Trust in assisting me in preparing for today’s debate.

The purpose of my amendment is to require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament, before clause 9 comes into force, a report on the impact of the extension of the disqualification framework on people with criminal records who are trustees of, or who are employed by, charities that work with or employ ex-offenders. I intend to urge the Government to provide us with further clarification of the impact of the extension of the disqualification framework on people with criminal records and charities that work with or employ ex-offenders. The amendment also provides an opportunity for the Minister to outline in more detail how he and his Department intend to conduct the review of the waiver process to ensure that people with criminal records who are existing employees or charitable trustees, or who are seeking or intend to seek employment or a trusteeship in a charity, are not unfairly discriminated against.

Clause 9 and the policy behind it are entirely worthy and understandable. We clearly do not want people who are engaged in terrorism to be using charities to move money around or to hide their outrageous behaviour; that is not controversial, but one problem might be the unintended consequence of the clause on people whom the Government may not want to impact. One has only to read out clause 9(5) to realise that someone who comes within

“Part 1 of the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc Act 2010…or…the Al-Qaida (Asset-Freezing) Regulations 2011”

is not someone whom we want to be involved in charities. That is not a problem, but I am concerned about the unintended consequence of that perfectly understandable and worthwhile clause.